(Original post by elen90)
- 16/17 year olds were not included, despite being in the demographic affected for the greatest period of time.
- The referendum never should have existed because the decision on leaving the EU was not ours to make (this opens up another trail of arguments but I've already dealt with this, I'll link you to those posts if need be).
- The 'majority' was 52% of a 72% turnout of eligible voters.
- EU citizens who have lived here for years and contributed greatly to the economy were deprived of the vote.
- The Leave campaign has founded itself on misinformation and lies, spearheaded by an opportunist who never wanted the actual Brexit result.
- Many of those who voted Leave were the disillusioned working classes making a protest vote, rather than opting for it on the basis that they had genuine belief in the choice.

Referendums are not binding.

- 16 and 17 year olds are not the demographic affected for the most amount of time. The older generation saw how the EU was pushed onto the UK in the 70's and have ad to live with job cuts and declines in industry ever since ! They will also be the ones that have to fix it for the 16/17 year olds to have a future ! By the time they reacha working age - stability would already be in place !

- if the descision to leave wasn't ours - whose was it ? Europes ? A dictator ? Do you not respect your right to vote or the deaths of thousands in the World Wars toensure you have that right ?

- EU citizens should have had the vote. Why - only those that have citizenship could vote. Those that don't either choose not to apply or haven't worked here long enough !

- The remain campaign was founded on exageration, lies and scaremongering !

- many who voted leave have studied the arguments for and against and never took the descision lightly. The majority made an informed descision. You shouldn't make generalisations based upon bigotry ! Few if any made a protest vote - one or two videos is not evidence of this !

(Original post by CharlesJH)
I personally do not believe that under 18s should be given the vote because we do not contribute much to society in the first place. I am not going to say the argument of "young people getting more manipulated", because that is ****ing stupid in itself, older people get manipulated as well and are drooling idiots. However, I am not entirely sure of how our future will be affected within this referendum but I still feel if we were to allow people to vote of lower ages in one election rather than all elections, it is open to be called unfair. Even if you can argue a good case which I can agree with and perhaps change my mind, if we are to call a second referendum we should keep the same conditions of the previous one (assuming that you believe that 16-17 year olds should be given the vote for the new referendum, in which case that you don't it does not apply to you), but even then one election shouldn't be different to another to me. We can't just have 16-17 year olds vote in one election and not vote in another in my opinion.

I think that 16 year olds should be entitled to vote in any election or referendum, I'm just particularly hitting this point now because it's so relevant. You're right, we can't have inconsistency.

We do not make every decision of what the government does and in some cases we shouldn't. As I mentioned earlier though, I do not know the source of the referendum happening so I will not comment deeply on this. If you want to send me a link I would be happy to look at it.

In my opinion the referendum only came about as the result of Cameron and the Tory government edging it into their manifesto in order to appease backbenchers and win the general election.

Here you go - essentially I'm arguing that the referendum shouldn't exist, primarily because none of us have the knowledge at hand or right to make such a monumental decision, and someone told me that my argument was derisive and undemocratic. This was my response.

I'm not sure what your point entirely is with this one. 52% may be just over the 50% majority limit, but it is still 1 million + people.

The terms of the referendum were, to many of us, injust and undemocratic. Being able to pass a mandate by merely exceeding the 50% threshold by one vote does not seem to me to be representative of an entire population. The means of allowing people to vote was democratic but I think you need a more obvious consensus to take such an outcome as 'the will of the people', especially on a choice as pivotal as this. 60% perhaps.

It then again depends on how long people have lived within the country and election laws must be abided. A reform of election laws could solve this issue for future voting.

Yep, the laws definitely need a touchup.

I can agree with some of this statement. The campagins were full of misinformation, but some of remain could be full of misinformation as well in some people's regard. However, despite the fact that the whole referendum itself was full of misinformation coming from both sides, I do not think the 17410742 people ALL voted because of any misinformation they heard, but perhaps their own opinion from other arguments, or their own opinion on the system of the Eu itself. 17410742 people are not going to look at a huge ****ing bus and say "Oh well, that's going to be my reason to vote leave!". Some people may do this, in which case they are an idiot, but some people who voted leave did not just listen to misinformation.

I'm unhappy with many aspects of the Remain campaign too. I voted Remain on the basis that about 95% of experts were warning us against leaving the EU, it's easier to reform something when you're a member of it, and as I said, the people in charge of the Leave campaign were unsavoury characters that offered no compelling arguments that couldn't be easily refuted.

Sorry if that was lengthy, if you want to argue against anything please feel free to do so.

As a side note, I thank you for being polite in your counterarguments!

(Original post by DoctorDC)
Once again i ask you - how do you know that ? That is not a statement of fact but your opion which is very biased ! Stick that in a thesis and claim it is fact and you would be laughed at !

(Original post by DoctorDC)
- 16 and 17 year olds are not the demographic affected for the most amount of time. The older generation saw how the EU was pushed onto the UK in the 70's and have ad to live with job cuts and declines in industry ever since ! They will also be the ones that have to fix it for the 16/17 year olds to have a future ! By the time they reacha working age - stability would already be in place !

- if the descision to leave wasn't ours - whose was it ? Europes ? A dictator ? Do you not respect your right to vote or the deaths of thousands in the World Wars toensure you have that right ?

- EU citizens should have had the vote. Why - only those that have citizenship could vote. Those that don't either choose not to apply or haven't worked here long enough !

- The remain campaign was founded on exageration, lies and scaremongering !

- many who voted leave have studied the arguments for and against and never took the descision lightly. The majority made an informed descision. You shouldn't make generalisations based upon bigotry ! Few if any made a protest vote - one or two videos is not evidence of this !

(Original post by AverageExcellence)
Lol are you really trying to insult peoples' intelligence by implying 'threat to peace on the continent' could mean angry ambassadors? you can't see the implication given the context and history of Europe?

The quote by Tusk/Junker speaks for itself, it doesn't need explaining that brexit will not lead to the collapse of western civilisation.

You see an implication, I don't. Your argument is nothing but subjectivity.

My point was that you took quotes out of context, and downright lied. You've proved as much in your responses.

(Original post by elen90)
I think that 16 year olds should be entitled to vote in any election or referendum, I'm just particularly hitting this point now because it's so relevant. You're right, we can't have inconsistency.

I don't think they should provided the vote in any election, full stop. Why? We as 16 year olds do not provide much to our economy and we do not even pay tax yet. Some will have jobs sure, but we still do not pay taxes.

(Original post by elen90)
In my opinion the referendum only came about as the result of Cameron and the Tory government edging it into their manifesto in order to appease backbenchers and win the general election. Here you go - essentially I'm arguing that the referendum shouldn't exist, primarily because none of us have the knowledge at hand or right to make such a monumental decision, and someone told me that my argument was derisive and undemocratic. This was my response.

I feel that we have had a good enough of time to make an informed decision of what each person thinks should be done, this referendum was called last year I believe (correct me if I'm wrong). I may sound like a hypocrite because well I am not very informed on it and have not been keeping fully up to date with it, but nonetheless it would be my own job to look at both sides of the argument and make my own informed decision by perhaps watching a debate. Nonetheless, leaving the EU is a monumnetally huge decision, but as adults (if we were above 18) we must inform ourselves on what is happening and make a decision. I will agree with you though that David Cameron could have started this to appease his backbenchers, but I am not sure whether this was done because people actually wanted this which could be the case slightly. There are of course perhaps a lot of variables of why this all started which I should have looked into, but I had exams and I'm an overall lazy ****. I still do not declare the referendum to be undemocratic because of this reason.

(Original post by elen90)
The terms of the referendum were, to many of us, injust and undemocratic. Being able to pass a mandate by merely exceeding the 50% threshold by one vote does not seem to me to be representative of an entire population. The means of allowing people to vote was democratic but I think you need a more obvious consensus to take such an outcome as 'the will of the people', especially on a choice as pivotal as this. 60% perhaps.

"one vote", I'm just going to assume that is a typo for one million people. If it was off by 1 vote or something (HIGHLY UNLIKELY), then there could be perhaps a slight good reason to have, another one (in before some autistic memester tries to make a DJ khaled joke). However, 3 million ish people (from calculations) between the minority would be what you would want rather than 1 million in this case. 1 million to me is still a lot of bloody people, which could be enough to make a firm decision. 3 million people would mean a further security of what we as a country think, but I still feel majority still stands. The reason I think that this percentage difference was so small, was because of the amount of division of opinion there was and the referendum overall was very controversial between different people. I would therefore feel it would be very unlikely for there to be such a huge percentage such as 60% to 40% and I even predicted this being 51% to 49%, we should still follow with what majority says as it would be unfair in my opinion to go in favour of the minority option (although I don't think this is what you think). It would also be unfair to call another referendum right now because it would disregard the right of people who voted leave.

(Original post by elen90)
I'm unhappy with many aspects of the Remain campaign too. I voted Remain on the basis that about 95% of experts were warning us against leaving the EU, it's easier to reform something when you're a member of it, and as I said, the people in charge of the Leave campaign were unsavoury characters that offered no compelling arguments that couldn't be easily refuted.

Alrighty, both sides I think were at fault overall. We can only wait to see what happens.

(Original post by elen90)
As a side note, I thank you for being polite in your counterarguments!

No problemo, although I am overall not polite in this thread and quite the opposite by telling people to "shut the **** up" and calling people "drooling idiots", lol.